


Thrall

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Legends continuity, Post-Underworld, Self-Reflection, Trick or Treat 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-05 04:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21207245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: There had been plenty at home to remind her of her mother; the gardens, the pool.  Despite the modifications she’d made to suit her purposes, it still had very much been her family home.  They hadn’t been unpleasant memories, really, for three decades of her life being reminded of her mother had been mostly pleasant, tinged with sadness.Then came Yggdrasil.





	Thrall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SophieAyase](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieAyase/gifts).

Rain pattered down the windows, with the occasional burst of lightning. 

On the table, next two a pair of nine-millimeter, match-grade handguns, was a carved and worked piece of stone, roughly thirty centimeters by ten by ten. It was granite… or appeared to be granite, with the unusual property of being several degrees colder than the surrounding room at all times. That was only the first, and least interesting of its unusual properties.

Inscribed on the top of the stone was a series of characters that put out a continuous blue luminescence. In between the lightning strikes, the glow of these characters illuminated the desk and the handguns, but not much else. The characters, rendered out loud, were “Okh Eshivar”.

The phrase didn’t correspond to known languages, and the few notes she had from her father on the pronunciation didn’t specify what it was. Her own theory was that it was Atlantean. This phrase, when spoke aloud, caused unusual behavior in undead thralls. It rendered them amenable to commands.

Three weeks ago, she’d spoken those words twice. The first time merely showed that the thralls could be controlled. The second raised many more questions. If she knew the phrase Okh Eshivar, if she knew what it could do earlier, if she had sought out the stone before she set out to kill Natla. It was underneath her own house, after all.

What if she had known that at Yggdrasil? 

It was something she tried and failed not to think about. She told herself that that was a pointless line of inquiry. It could control thralls and her Doppelganger. That didn’t mean they were one and the same. The Doppelganger was not mindless, it was smart, just enslaved by that phrase. Until she had freed it. It lived. Thralls were dead. 

But what if.

She sat back and watched the rain come down. Mother didn’t much care for London—it was fine, but she preferred being home, or out on an expedition. Maybe that’s why she had been dragging her feet on rebuilding the manor—the thing was gone but the memories would linger.

Only question is, what memories?

There had been plenty at home to remind her of her mother; the gardens, the pool. Despite the modifications she’d made to suit her purposes, it still had very much been her family home. They hadn’t been unpleasant memories, really, for three decades of her life being reminded of her mother had been mostly pleasant, tinged with sadness. She lost her mother, in utterly inexplicable circumstances, but she grew up, and grew calloused towards the inexplicable.

Then Peru. The Dais. Avalon, Yggdrasil. The monomyth. The reunion with Amanda. That changed things, brought back old memories with clarity—she had not forgotten her mother’s disappearance, but everything came back sharper now, Amanda and her in the present had affected her mother in the past, but she and her father would not have been driven to where they were without her mother’s disappearance.

Walking the hallways of the manor never brought back the pleasant memories, they brought back memories of Tibet, of being nine years old and alone because her mother disappeared in thin air; and nobody believed her about what happened. Either those distant, crystal clear memories, or the more recent ones, watching that same past happen from a different angle, and being just as helpless despite literally wielding Excalibur. 

She jumped when the tray was set down. “My dear Lara, how did you let an old man sneak up on you?”

His smile was forced—the same sort of attempt to brighten her mood he’d had on his face when she was nine. She knew he was worried about her. “I was… lost in thought. Thank you for the tea, Winston”

“Maybe having someone to talk to would help. I’m no archaeologist, but I do want to help in any way I can.” That he did, but she wasn’t in the mood to tell him all about Yggdrasil yet. She hadn’t told them much on what happened there. After a long pause as she held a cup of steaming tea, he added. “You never said anything, but I figure… the way you’ve been since you came back to England means you found her there.”

Lara turned at him, jaw clenching.

It was hard to read his face in the shadow, even though she’d known him all her life. But he audibly took a deep breath, shrugged, and said “If you hadn’t found her, you would’ve told me by now.”

She nodded. “She was… there was not much left.”

She had gotten her hopes up, that split second before the thing turned around. There were some tears, but her mother’s clothes were immaculately preserved. She herself looked alright… until she heard Lara call out and turned. It was an extra cruel twist of that knife. Half of her mother’s face, maybe less, was ashen, but recognizable. The rest… what the eitr did to people was not pretty.

That’s why she didn’t want to return to the manor. She’d been obsessing over those images… what if now she’d be remembering her mother as _that thing_? Imagining the scenarios of what had happened to her. Had she been killed by one of the other thralls? Succumbed to thirst and tried drinking the Eitr? Had it been hours in that cold stone machine? Days? How long did she suffer in the dark? And then, how long did her corpse wait for something living to attack?

And… if Lara had that stone, knew the phrase Okh Eshivar… she could have halted the thrall’s attack. And then?

“I can’t imagine how hard it was for you.” Winston said.

“It…” She started, then thought. She remembered it coming, her telling herself that thing was not her mother, and her guns going off. She remembered dropping to her knees, only to rise back up because she had to stop Natla. She had managed to shoot her mother… what was left of her, and it was a damn sight more difficult than most of them.

_It gets better_. She remembered those words, seemed like forever ago, when killing someone was a difficult thing to do. It had gotten a lot easier. Since Peru… she had lost _count._ And only a fraction of those were thralls. “It was very difficult.”

Winston made to say something, but she cut him off. “Two generations of Crofts, archaeological sites on six continents, my father’s life, Alister’s life… and Larson’s and Rutland’s and whoever knows how many other lives, and it all led to that.”

Winston said, leaning in close. “As I said, I cannot even fathom what that was like for you, especially given the events of the preceding years. Lady Amelia… whatever happened was a tragedy. But you did everything you could; everything in your power.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

“The way I’m taken to understanding the situation, you saved the world.” Roundabout, after helping to put it on the brink in her blind rush to find her mother. “Is that not enough?”

She began to shake her head.

“Lara, I’ve watched you grow up. I know they… she would’ve been proud of everything you’ve achieved, and the choices and sacrifices you’ve made along the way.” He straightened. Wincing a little as his bad back protested. “I know one conversation is not going to fix everything. But please, Lara, if you need to… wish to talk things over, I’d be glad to assist in any way possible.”

She had gone back to contemplating the rain, only turning to the door as he reached it. “Winston?”

He turned, same sad smile on his face.

“Thank you.” He nodded and left. In many ways, she was glad he was trying to help her, but everything he had tried to tell her was something she had told herself. Maybe it would help. Maybe… she would take him up on his offer. Maybe ask him to repeat stories of his parents. Maybe.

She’d just have to try and not picture the thrall when he told them.

She looked at the stone again, still shining. Her fingers traced the characters on the top. What was it the Doppelganger had said?

_“Obsession and compulsion are much the same”_

She couldn’t stop thinking about the thrall, her mother, Yggdrasil. 

Gently tapping the stone, she muttered “Ohk eshrivar.”

She was not at all surprised that she couldn’t will herself to stop thinking.

**Author's Note:**

> Hm... this was in response to a pretty unique prompt. The _Legends_ continuity is my personal favorite incarnation of Tomb Raider, so thinking about where you go from _Underworld_ is interesting. Hopefully I did it justice here.


End file.
